


Silver bleeds roses.

by Koiffee



Series: Nebulae [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Gore, Implied/Referenced Torture, Paladins, Prisoner of War, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-04 17:09:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15845682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koiffee/pseuds/Koiffee
Summary: Starting from the capture of voltron and the Paladins in season 7 episode 2, the story tells the tale of a mysterious blade member called Ariana, captured by the Galrans one year after the Paladins' battle with Lotor. Tortured and wounded, she meets the Paladins in her prison, who later help her escape and take her with them. From that point onwards, this fic will explore Ariana's past and the future will derive from canon. Just to write a different story <3





	1. Silver bleeds roses.

It had been a long time since she had last seen the light of the stars. She could not remember their beauty, or the gorgeous and delicate constellations she had once so carefully embedded into her mind. Hell, her brain even struggled to remember how often those same astral plains had been compared to her silver gaze, a never-seen-before anomaly in the species she’d been borne into.  
Ah, what was she doing? Wistfully trying to recall old and dusty beauties that no longer trod her path, for only blood remained in it now.  
Blood.  
_Drip, drip, drip_  
Streaming down her shoulders, staining her silver locks with roses, poisoning her tongue with the bitter taste of iron.  
Iron.  
_Clank,clank,clank_  
Heavy footsteps clashing against her ears, oh so _raw_ and _sensitive_ and she wants to _scream_ against the searing agony but she _can’t_.  
Oh, how she wished she could. But her throat was raw and each breath was a struggle, causing her to break into painful coughing bouts every few minutes. The footsteps grew nearer, and with them she could make out the arrogant cackle of the Galra guard, who grew ever closer to the cold cell she had been locked in for the past two years.

“Looks like you’ll be having company, little parasite.” The voice, the jeers, the name...their sting had stopped long ago. A parasite...that’s who she was. Her true name was a blur of words at the very back of her mind, as if she recognized the name but could not match it with a face. 

_Ariana_ , her mind called. _Ariana, Ariana, Ariana. Your name is Ariana._

“C...com...p-p-” Her reply was cut short by the spasms that once again ran up her body, and she glared silver daggers at the guard, who was suddenly tilted sideways. Why was he tilted to the side? Was that the cold metal floor against her left ear? Oh.  
The restraints that fixed her ankles to the wall tensed against her awkward position, scrapping them even rawer, warm blood tainting the paleness of her lavander fur. Too pale. Another trait to distinguish her for. In the darkness that surrounded the corner of her prison, where she lay facing the metal bars, her fever-glazed eyes looked like phantoms, pupils slitted from the pain as she fought for breath. Two years of torture, of beatings, of cuttings and whippings. The only thing keeping her alive were the drugs they injected inside her body every day.

After all...they needed the daughter of the Blade’s leader alive.  
They would keep interrogating her, until she broke down in pieces.  
They had kept going for two years, and she had not yet been broken. She never would.  
_Victory or Death; That was the Galra way._

At all of this, the guard had kept talking, undisturbed by the agonizing spasms his prisoner was suffering from.  
“...the Paladins of Voltron have fallen into the same pit of misery you have. Maybe we can have some fun before we dispose of you, for your value is far less than what we’ve now obtained.”  
Before Ariana could react to these new facts, new footsteps invaded the narrow hallway accompanied by several muffled shouts of protest, and a burst of colours invaded her vision. The blurs of pink, red, yellow, green, black and blue were forcefully thrust inside as her own cell door opened, slamming shut moments later as all the guards left with not a word more. 

“...-uys, we need to get out of here.” - The tired but determined voice reached the galran’s sensitive ears, and was quickly followed by more of them.  
“Yeah, Hunk. But I don’t know if you’ve noticed, we are kind of trapped inside Ezor and Zethrid’s prison right now, _without_ our lions or bayards” - The second voice answered the first, but Ariana could not gather enough conscience to understand what they meant. All the voices meant to her were _pain pain pain pain_ inside her head. She was certain it would split any moment now.

“Lance, Hunk, just shut up right now! We need to stay calm. Patience yields focus.” The third voice had a commanding tone to it, reassuring. But it was also what threw her over the line. She could not avoid the whine of pain and frustration that escaped her bloodied lips, and she recoiled into her little corner, dazed with agony and _fear_. 

The sudden movement was enough to call their attention. She could sense all the stares boring into her broken body, as if all six prisoners had just became aware of a seventh presence in the cellar, and the reaction was immediate.  
In less than a second, a blurry face was hovering above her, and her long tail brushed against something...a foot? She could barely tell through the pain.  
“Hey...hey, look up.”  
The voice was enough for her head to tilt slightly upwards from where it rested on the side, and silver eyes clashed with indigo. A gentle gasp escaped her...she recognized the face. The first familiarity she had come across since she’d been captured.  
“...K-k...ei-th…” The name left her lips, attracting several gasps all around her and a wary question from the one with the indigo eyes.  
“...Who are you?”


	2. Knives and Blades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team escapes, taking the mysterious prisoner with them.  
> They learn something new!

_She could remember the halfling’s trials. She had not grasped the opportunity to partake in them, but she’d watched. Her silver eyes, masked beneath her suit, had followed the stubborn challenger while he dodged her comrades’ blows, a slight smirk showing behind the mask when she realized they were merely toying with him like a tiger with its prey.  
But as it turned out, the paladin had what it took to be a blade, awakening his knife after hours of struggle-  
No. That knife wasn’t his. She recognized that weapon...her own mentor had wielded it at her countless times before. It didn’t take her long to put two and two together.  
This stubborn, hot-headed halfling was Krolia’s son.  
.   
And how she missed Krolia. The Galra woman had stood beside her for years, fulfilling the space in her life where she supposed a mother had once stood. The faithful blade had been gone for a long time now, deployed to a base in order to destroy the empire from the inside.  
For a moment, a protective instinct had overrun her caution, but the odd Galran had kept her emotions in check. The boy was a blade now; If Krolia had given her knife to him, she had to believe he could take care of himself. It wasn’t her place to protect him...the mission above the individual. That was the Marmora way._

“B...bl..ade. K..kro-” - Ariana’s answer was cut off with a strangled scream as she curled in on herself, blood pooling beneath her stomach as her wounds throbbed and stung and _fucking burned_. She couldn’t tell how many others were surrounding her anymore, could barely remember it was Keith holding her shoulders as they shook. She despised looking so weak, so vulnerable, so _broken_ , and not for the first time in the last two years, Ariana wished death would take her quickly. Now, before she broke completely.   
The sudden exclamation that resounded somewhere before her caught her completely by surprise, and her long pale tail went rigid as her ears recognized the sound. The _voice_.  
“Ariana!” Krolia’s voice sounded close, and the prisoner wondered if she was dreaming, or even dying. But if the latter was true, she couldn’t bare to hear that particular voice, because it would mean Krolia was…  
No. She refused to think about it.  
Slowly, ever so gently, her head was cradled in between someone’s hands, and her gaze lifted and bore into _purple pupils, filled with emotion and care and oh god she’d forgotten what those looked like…_  
All dignity long gone, Ariana allowed the tears to overflow her glazed eyes, curling against Krolia’s lap as if she were a cub again and not the fierce warrior she’d become. “I’m...s-so...s-orry...I...f-failed…” Her sobs were cut abruptly by another coughing fit, and as the last of her awareness left her, she could feel Krolia’s hands softly playing with her matted silver locks.  
\-----------

Keith didn’t think he’d ever been so confused in his lifetime, and considering all the weird stuff he’d gone through both as a paladin and a blade, that was saying something. When his mother pushed past him and held the wounded...galra...between her arms, he could _feel_ hundreds of questions flickering through his mind. They knew each other? How come he didn’t recognize her, but she did? Who the hell _was_ she in the first place? How did she end up in this prison?  
Too many questions, too little time. They had to get out, _now_ , and by the look krolia shot him, they were not leaving Ariana behind.  
Not that he was going to anyway, for the record.   
\-----------

When next she came to, Ariana could tell they were mid-battle. Heck, she’d _grown up_ in a war, been raised with a knife in her hand...she could recognize the sound of a bomb going off anywhere, anytime. And apparently, that sound was all she needed to remember, to realize who she was and where she stood and how she’d gotten there. Her body was draped over gentle arms, and upon twitching her nose in order to identify her holder, she was greeted by a sweet smell that vaguely reminded her of food and made her stomach bend in over itself in protest of what it could not have and hadn’t had for a long time.  
Her observation continued, despite being yet unable to open her tired eyes. Had they gotten out? She couldn’t feel the heavy chains weighing her down, although they still circled her ankles and wrists. And there was this...presence? No, not quite right...but, there was something in the room with her, aside from the other people battling around her, tugging at the strings of her heart and urging her to get _up, up, up_ and get to it. Finally, Ariana opened her eyes and glimpsed a blur of red and white before her, blade against blade as keith faced a Galran guard and simultaneously shielded her and whoever was holding her up. And beyond him, in the belt of the guard…she drew in a sharp intake of breath.  
A luxite blade.  
A blade attached to her very life essence, she could feel it, a presence she’d missed for two years. A presence that seemed to fill her with energy once more, temporarily numbing the fierce burn of her wounds and the poison in her throat. The paladin carrying her froze as she squirmed in his grasp, but before he could even yell a warning to his fellow comrades, she was off. Running, dodging, she took the guard by surprise and managed to grasp the hilt of the knife in her claws, lavender tail swishing behind her in ecstasy as adrenaline rushed through her veins and she felt her lips part in a vicious snarl, although what she said she could not remember.   
As if it were all one single movement, her arm splayed out, blade shone and turned, and the guard came rushing down in a heap at the black paladin’s feet with blood gurgling at the slit throat.   
“Y-you’ve got no idea...how long...I’ve waited to do that.” Ariana’s lips fluttered as pants escaped her heaving chest, and with not a word more, she turned heel and ran, ripping and tearing through the guards that blocked her pathway to freedom. The blade in her claws, once a tiny knife, slashed through meat as though it were butter and gleamed silver against the crimson stains. Its long, thin double-edged shaft curved elegantly in her grasp, and the Marmora symbol was embedded in its onyx hilt, shining the same purple hues as the gentle lines that ran along the silver blade.  
As if on cue, the other paladins followed, fighting back with renewed energy as if the sudden movement had lifted them out of a haze. Soon enough, the metal floor flooded crimson beneath their feet, and she felt the last of the adrenaline leave her behind, knees weak and lavender fur drenched in sweat and she was falling, falling, falling and the sword turned into a knife in her grasp and someone caught her in their arms and the only piece of her past cluttered to the ground until the only thing she saw was _black, black, black._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another chapter! Flashbacks and escaping, I promise I'll soon get to the spicier stuff!
> 
> Please leave a kudos and/or comment if you'd like to see more! This is my first ever fic so I'd like to see how I'm doing aah <3


	3. Safe and Sound

The black lion, the machine looking down upon her, majestic and glowing in all its beauty as Ariana opened her silver eyes and stumbled upright in shock. The phantom pains of her wounds threatened to engulf her, until she realised they were no more. Her pale lavender fur shone softly, as if eager to proclaim the fact that indeed, _her wounds were gone._ No bloody whippings, no scorching burns, no gawking cuts and bruises. Unsure, Ariana gazed back at the lion, who stood still and silent as if respecting the galran’s need of space, and speaking of…  
She was surrounded by _stars_. Oh, such beautiful, glowing, mystifying stars. How she’d missed them! They reflected on the ground beneath her, and with each frantic step she cast the glittering orbs rippled as if part of a pond that’d been stirred.   
_”Welcome to the Astral plane, little one.”_ The purr rumbled in her perked up ears, and suddenly Ariana was not scared anymore. She sighed in relief and slowly approached the beast, tail swishing gracefully behind her as a clawed hand reached out to stroke the lion’s muzzle. The contact summoned a rush of warm images into her mind, and she gasped with the happiness and companionship that they portrayed. She could suddenly see the colourful paladins crystal-clear, and sense their closeness and loyalty towards one another. The images brought a word to the tip of her tongue, a word she’d missed for all of two years’ time. Ariana smiled softly and thanked the lion, kneeling before it and whispering with tears in her eyes.  
“Family.” She stated to the stars below.  
 _”Safe” _She was answered, a warm purr encasing the response.  
\-----------------  
When next she woke, Ariana was greeted by an embrace of cold, blue liquid. Before she could study her surroundings however, the glass keeping her inside vanished and she was left staring into the ceiling, her ears perking and twitching at the sudden rush of sensorial overload.   
“Ariana, you’re alright. You’re safe, kit.” Krolia’s voice reached her, and suddenly the memories of her escape, and darnit, of her imprisonment, hit her like a solid wall. A chirp escaped her lips and she thrust herself forward until her arms had wrapped around her mother figure’s neck and she was purring, sobbing quietly onto a familiar shoulder. The other people in the room had inched closer, and it was then that Ariana found herself pulling away from the embrace and away from the others’ proximity, for she felt oddly breathless at the sight of them all.   
“I...I apologize, but...Paladins, _Krolia_...how are you all here? How are you _alive_?” _How did you all find me, and get me out, and why?_ her mind supplied, but she did not voice those words out loud.  
Her silver pupils contracted as Keith, seemingly the leader, took a step forward and settled his indigo gaze on her. “We’ll explain everything, but can we trust you to answer some of our questions in turn?”  
That’s when her heart skipped a beat, and frost seemed to crawl all the way through her veins. _Questions_. They would question her. Her head reeled with the hurt, the pain, the whippings and shockings, the mocking voices of the soldiers that laughed and yelled and called her a freak, a disgusting _hybrid_ even though she knew not what they meant. Oh how they’d tortured answers out of her, answers she’d sworn she would not give.  
In the end, she didn’t yield. Only endured the pain, not too silently in the end.  
But break? Oh, she did. Scattered in a million little pieces, cosmic dust that would never feel the pleasure of breezing through the stars once again.  
“N-no questions...no...q-questions…” Ariana parted her lips in a low, heavy whine of anguish, and without allowing the others to catch her, she turned on her heels and bolted, slipping and slamming on her way out of the cockpit and onto the rocky ground outside. Her breaths came in ragged pants, her chest aching as if daggers were puncturing her from the inside out.   
And so, with ginger motions and teary eyes, the odd-looking Galra allowed herself to curl inwards in an attempt to shield her body from her own broken mind. Subconsciously, a part of her recognized she’d been in the cockpit of a ship, and that she was now gasping for air in the devoid surface of an unknown planet or asteroid.  
“Oh, kitling…”   
The sound of a tender voice and soft footsteps sent a shiver up her spine, although she did not move. In fact, she froze in her place with bristled fur and lashing tail and let out a soft, long whine from the back of her throat, but none of that seemed to deter the voice’s owner.  
She felt a soft touch on her shoulder, a violet gaze meeting her up front, crouched before her.  
“Krolia. Why?” That was all the Galra woman received from Ariana, but the latter thought understanding flashed in Krolia’s eyes before she spoke.   
“I don’t know how you ended up there, kit. I’ve had no contact with Kolivan or the blades since we defeated prince Lotor. But we saved you, we took you out. You’re safe Ariana. The paladins saved you. You made it. You survived. We shouldn’t have rushed you to answer.”  
The young Galra looked up into Krolia’s eyes, cheeks wet from tears, the paladins’ presence behind unnoticed so far.  
“You were _dead_. All of you.” Ariana turned her head to stare at the others behind her at last, wary still from their attempts at questioning her. Taking a sharp intake of breath, she continued. “You disappeared after the battle. Nobody saw you after that. It’s been _three deca-phoebs_.” Her throat constricted on the last words, but her broken voice was drowned by the collective gasp that left the other’s throats. Looks of horror edged each and every face, and she forced herself to look at the earth instead when the paladin in green armor...Pidge, she remembered, spoke.  
“That’s why all communication with the coalition was lost.”  
“Everybody who knew us thinks we’re dead.” Hunk, the yellow paladin, supplied with sweat dribbling down his face.  
Her shivering starting up again, Ariana murmured to them; “A year after you’d vanished...Kolivan and I were on an infiltration mission, attempting to find out where you’d gone. We...we infiltrated an Empire research base, where they were figuring out what had happened to Lotor. Haggar was there.”  
The young one, actually merely 17 years old, scrunched her silver eyes shut and shivered while Krolia tightened her warm grasp around her. Memories tainted with blood splashed her brain, going miles an hour.  
“I-I was so _so >/i> stupid! I allowed my emotions to cloud my judgement, but I couldn’t...I couldn’t allow her to touch Kolivan. To touch _dad_.” She was now sobbing uncontrollably, awareness of the others closing in with surprised whispers slipping away.  
“He told me to run, not to look back, take the intel and run he said...but instead I attacked the witch. There was an explosion, and...I don’t know much else. They tried getting answers out of me, said I’d tell them where Kolivan was, but I _didn’t and would not tell them even if I did_.”  
Ariana’s heart was beating frantically against her chest, and she knew the following words would hurt but she needed them out right now or she’d choke on them.  
Looking into Krolia’s eyes, she gasped; “I was there for two deca-phoebs.”  
The words hung heavy in the air, tension crackling in the silence, broken only by her vanishing sobs. Moments passed, until Keith stepped forward to crouch beside his mother. His smile was genuine, and...was that recognition in his eyes?  
“You’ll be safe with us, now sleep. Recover your strength.”  
And against her own protests, her eyes closed and she knew no more.___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys liked it! Kudos/comments make my day! <3 Sorry it took so long, school and mental health suck :/

**Author's Note:**

> Aaah, this is my first Voltron fic, I hope you guys like it...please let me know what you thought in the comments, and leave Kudos if you'd like me to continue! <3 Don't hesitate to let me know of any mistakes, English is not my mother tongue and I don't have an editor, so I'd love to fix any mistakes you find <3


End file.
